Unboxing 1,000 Magic: the Gathering Rares from Star City Games
Tom’s my Magical opposite. For the past sixteen years, the two of us have been slinging cards back and forth over any surface resembling a table despite our very different approaches toward gameplay. Tom finds one thing he enjoys and does it over and over and over again. He hones a deck over a course of years, making minor, yet significant changes. Hence, his current The Mimeoplasm Commander deck is a monstrosity. His virtual copy of the same deck tears through the Magic Online Commander room, dumping Terastodon on the table, converting lands to pachyderms, followed by a Kederekt Leviathan. All of this, of course, happens at the end of his opponent’s turns thanks to Prophet of Kruphix. And if that isn’t enough to hamstring an opponent, he’ll do it again and again until you’re land-naked, trampling your beaten corpse beneath the feet of his pet Terrastodon in the naked void of your battlefield.
I can’t play that way. Oh I like the occasional over the top recursion engine. I’m just uninterested in playing a deck once I won a game with it. I don’t want to succeed in Magic, I want to struggle. I want to adopt residents from the Island of Misfit Cards and smash people with them. I want to surprise players with an awkward three card combo turning the table on edge, leaving my opponents spinning. I’m not bothered to know I’ll lose most of the time with my Frankendecks. Because when I win, it’s going to be glorious.
So, when I read about Star City Game’s offer for 1,000 random rares for $150, I said to myself, “Self? Let’s do this.”
Disclaimer: I have never once referred to myself as ‘self’ when talking to myself.
Granted, even with my voracious appetite for the wrong, 1,000 random rares is 975 more than I need to keep me occupied. I got alternate uses for these suckers, though. Among them:
- Increase the number of Commander decks I own.
- Bolster my current five decks with a selection of alternate card choices.
- Feed my Big Box: a Cube for drafting that (theoretically) holds one of every Magic card printed. As of right now, my box contains approximately 8,000 cards. I count reprints as individual cards (for example, there are 12 copies of Samite Healer in the box, from Alpha to Tenth edition plus Starter) so it’s difficult to compare that number to the 13,651 unique Magic cards not including reprints (but including Unglued and Unhinged.) It should be obvious, though, that I own most commons and many uncommons. If I want to continue feeding the box, I need to fill it with cheap rares.
- Make a few Modern decks. I don’t have any currently, since I ‘graduated’ to casual singleton quasi-eternal formats. Honestly, I would prefer to make Standard decks (Actually, I would prefer to make Block Constructed decks, but that’s not a thing anymore.) I’m a much bigger fan of limitation. But I’m not expecting many cards printed in the last two years to pop out of this selection (Note to self: convince Tom to create a ‘Choose Your Own Standard’ deck.)
- Sell what I don’t need in a bulk lot. $150 isn’t chump change. If I can put half the cards that I’m not interested in back in the system for $60, I should take the Jacksons.
One thousand cards is heavy. I know. I’ve been lugging this brick in my backpack back and forth to work while I plug away at this article. Star City was nice enough to add card 1,001 to break the camel’s back.
A token Germ featuring Alex Bastecki, winner of the 2015 Star City Open International. Cool. I can always use new token creatures.
It’s just… I don’t want to come off as unappreciative. SCG doesn’t owe me anything, but I wish they could have forked over a few more tokens. Shouldn’t there be an in-house rule that for every $50 you spend, you get an additional bonus card? At the very least, wouldn’t that encourage people to spend more? Again, I’m happy I got what I got. I just assume it would have been good business to give me a playset.
My first selection of fifty cards comes from Darksteel. We’re moving forward in chronological order (mostly) so here’s good news up front. All 1,000 rares are either Modern legal, or were printed in a specialty product with a Modern frame (such as the Commander set.) I’m not really bothered by the prospect of receiving pre-Modern cards, since the Big Box desires all. But it’s nice to know that when I make Modern decks, that my selection won’t be stymied (and that I’m not swimming in Fallen Empires or Homelands ‘rares’. The Big Box features a complete set of both already, thanks.)
34 cards from Champions of Kamigawa, and 46 cards from Saviors of Kamigawa. In order for the article to be readable, I reduced the picture sizes. If you want to get a better look, click on any picture and you’ll get an eyeful in all its glory. Disclaimer: I rarely take picture, and commonly an idiot. In a number of these, I stood a little farther away and zoomed in. Looks great on the camera’s view screen. Not so great when the picture is magnified on a computer screen. Sorry about that.
52 from Ravnica: City of Guilds, 34 from Guildpact and 18 cards from Coldsnap. By now, you might have noticed a number of duplicates. That’s because every card is a duplicate. Cards were grabbed two at a time by staffers at SCG and shoved in this box. On occasion I received four copies. But that’s an enigma caused by two copies coming from two different sets. For example, I now own four copies of Death Cloud: Two from Darksteel and two from Modern Masters.
As a person who plays Singleton and who is trying to fill a Big Box with individual cards, that’s annoying. I’m happy to get Ulasht, the Hate Seed, since I’d like to make a Commander deck around it, but the second copy is Big Box bait, and potential copies three and four are chaff. Ah well. I assume most other players don’t mind the doubles… but if you’re thinking of buying a box for yourself and you only play Commander, here’s your warning. Over half the box is useless to you by default.
36 Planar Chaos card are here to represent Time Spiral block. There are no timeshifted cards from Time Spiral. That’s probably a choice, since a number of commons and uncommons were reprinted in that spot. Personally speaking, I wouldn’t have minded a Squire and a Ghost Ship, as long as they kept it to a few cards.
50 cards from Tenth Edition and 49 from Magic 2010. I don’t expect value from the core sets, but they can be a surprising resource sometimes. For the ‘win’ pile, I set aside Royal Assassin (why did I own none before? Strange.) Guardian Seraph, Great Sable Stag, Polymorph, Elvish Archdruid, Ant Queen, Merfolk Sovereign, Beacon of Destruction, Ambassador Laquatus, Upwelling and Kjeldoran Royal Guard which, I don’t know… it’s underpowered, but it seems like it could do good work in the right spot. I also got the usual riff-raff, such as four Serra Angels and four Shivan Dragons. Still, not bad overall for a pile of mostly reprints.
18 from Lorwyn, 34 from Morningtide, and 52 from Shadowmoor.
56 from Rise of the Eldrazi, 50 from Scars of Mirrodin, and 50 from Mirrodin Besieged. Not represented: Zendikar or Worldwake. I find it odd I wasn’t beseached upon to complete a great number of questionable quests, but I’m not surprised about the lack of Worldwake cards. Worldwake Boosters are still going for $25 a pop, doncha know.
46 cards from Dark Ascension. Sorry about all the lens flares going on in these pictures. Again, photography is something I must work on.
50 cards from Return to Ravnica, 52 from Dragon’s Maze, 52 from Journey into Nyx and 54 from Shards of Alara that I somehow missed on first pass. I also failed to take pics of 17 New Phyrexia cards. I think I forgot to count it as a part of Scars Block in the first two passes, then registered it in the right block when checking to see if I counted everything. The end result was that I thought I was 17 cards short.
Normally, seventeen out of a thousand wouldn’t bother me. But I’m writing an article, so I need to be thorough. So, not realizing my mistake, I sent a message to Star City Games. The good news is that their customer service department is excellent. They responded quickly and are sent me 30 rares to make up for the ‘error’. It was a small gesture on their part to correct something that didn’t need correcting, but it’s bound to pay dividends since I’m more likely to return to SCG when buying cards in the future.
And finally, 30 cards from Commander, 20 from Commander 2013 and 30 from Modern Masters. A selection that is chock full of good nuts.
For my new Commander decks, I snagged a number of options. Amid the 1,000 cards were 99 Legendary creatures. And while they were all duplicates, the end result is 48 or so potential Commanders. Oddball Legends, too—many which only made sense if you built a deck around them. How about my pre-existing Commander decks? Did I get enough cards to flesh them out?
This first selection is for my Isamaru, Hound of Konda deck which I previously wrote about here. Isamaru’s goal is to erect a front of ruthless and continuous aggression, frustrating the opponent into wasting opportunities. Precinct Captain, Contested War Zone and Torpor Orb apply early pressure, while cards like White Sun’s Zenith, Argentum Armor, Dictate of Heliod, Alliance of Arms, Captain of the Watch and Sigil of Distinction keep the pressure going after an early board wipe. Victory’s Herald and Deathless Angel are odd choices… I talked before how if you’re not the aggressor with Isamaru, then you’re losing. But while life gain and protecting my stuff isn’t a priority, these two cards are great when turning your team sideways. I’m interested in seeing what they can do.
Second is my Black/Green/White recursion deck with a goofy centerpiece involving Forked-Branch Garami, Promised Kannushi, Ashes of the Fallen and a sacrifice outlet for an incredibly convoluted and mana-hungry way to slowly dump my graveyard full of four casting cost creatures on the table. It also features a weird 50% spiritcraft thing going on. It’s a mess, but it’s fun to play.
A number of the new cards focus on moving creatures between life and death: Mortician Beetle, Gleancrawler, Fresh Meat, Butcher of Malakir, Death’s Presence, Splinterfright, Pontiff of Blight, Thought Gorger, and Requiem Angel. Meanwhile, Death Cloud, and Grim Backwoods help with some oh so important sacrifice outlets. Citanul Flute constructs the central combo, or fetches me the perfect silver bullet to recur. I don’t have specific plans for Desecration Demon. He just looks fun. And while I doubt I’ll keep Zombie Apocalypse, I might slip it in for a game to see the surprise on my opponents faces when I set Ashes of the Fallen to ‘Zombie’.
When I’m tired of getting banged around, I reach for my Red/Blue junk deck that spends the early game tying up mana sources with cards like Tangle Wire while digging for a Jokulhaups or an Obliterate to wipe the board, leaving a monster in its wake thanks to the deck’s commander, Jhoira of the Ghitu (I can get there without her, though. Most of my creatures dodge the Obliterate anyway.)
While half the deck is bent on this path to victory, the other half is solid control cards. So I guess I’m not surprised to see so many alternates presenting themselves. Mizzium Mortars, Phyrexian Ingester, Chancellor of the Spires, Cryptoplasm, Djinn of Wishes, Magus of the Bazaar, Invoke the Firemind, Cerebral Vortex, Soramaro, First to Dream, Pulse of the Forge, Meloku the Clouded Mirror and Call the Skybreaker are here mostly because they look interesting. Earthquake, Myojin of Infinite Rage and Bearer of the Heavens are here to support the theme of table resets. In theory, that’s also why I set Warp World aside… though, I got to take a good look at the deck to guage if it’s worth it. As an aside, the deck features a Goblin Welder, Trash for Treasure and Daretti, Scrap Savant theme, so I’m pleased to see both Thopter Assembly and Spine of Ish Sah.
I have a Zur the Enchanter deck. It’s not what you think! It was my first commander deck, made before I discovered how upset people were with the broken enchantments Zur tutored for. But I never fetched cards like Necropotence or Stasis. I only ask Zur to fetch weirdos like Vow of Duty and Escape Routes.
The deck is a mess right now. I’m planning to tear it down and rebuild, so these cards represent potential tools: Righteous Authority, Mind Spring, Obzedat’s Aid, Detention Sphere, Brilliant Ultimatum, Punish Ignorance, Sphinx of Magosi, Gravitational Shift, Pulse of the Fields, Cradle of Vitality, Skybind, Flickerform and Plagiarize.
My last deck is mostly green Snakes tribal, commanded by Pharika, God of Affliction. For a while, I’ve been meaning to toss Endless Swarm in to be cast when I run out of steam. Increasing Savagery looks like a solid addition, too. I’m sure I passed on other decent cards to throw in the deck. Epic Proportions comes to mind. Maybe I’ll take another pass and see what I can find.
By the time I finished pouring through everything, one third of the cards in the box were set aside as ‘wins’. There’s plenty of good stuff in the ‘not-so-win’ pile, too. Cards that I already owned, like Greater Gargadon or couldn’t think of an immediate use for it, like Skylasher. Peppered through the box are a great number of cards that spent time in the tournament spotlight, but were no longer in favor and/or was reprinted such as Dragonstorm, Cruel Ultimatum, Figure of Destiny and Stromkirk Noble. Many of these cards run for $.75 to $1 apiece on dealer websites (including Star City Games), and could easily cost $3 or $5 at game stores that doesn’t update their prices often.
I don’t want to oversell the box. For every Cyclonic Rift there was a Favor of the Mighty. And like I mentioned before, the box came with a frustrating number of duplicates. But I’m a creative guy who can find uses for good tools. At fifteen cents a rare, it’s hard to imagine a better deal. An unnecessary deal, perhaps. But if I’m going to throw money at dealers for pieces of cardboard, this was a good way to do it.
